No one likes changes
by yacuruna
Summary: During her time as lab assistant and girl Friday for the Anvengers Darcy Lewis has made a few good friends. She used to feel at home among her freaks, but she's changing and she feels like her life should,too. Unsure how to deal with her situation she starts alienating her new friends. Rated for language and later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Darcy watched the fireworks from inside the lab. She kept Rogers company who always spent this part of the 4th in there. Behind the sound proof glass he could enjoy the spectacle without having to endure the noise and without having to fight the urge to flinch and hide whenever it got too loud. He didn't mind very much that he wasn't up on the roof with the rest of guests. Darcy's witty commentary about this years party so far was much more enjoyable then a strangers attempts at nonchalant conversation anyway. With her heated forehead pressed to the window she chattered away while drawing dicks into the mist her breath created on the glass.

While the others had gotten more relaxed around him over time, had mostly turned to using his not completely worn off awkwardness as an opportunity for jokes, Darcy was the only one who was completely carefree in his company. Just like she was in the company of any of the Avengers. She'd give everyone she met the Darcy treatment no matter if they were human, alien, a lab created rage monster, a billionaire or a waitress. Steve knew that his team mates enjoyed being around her just as much as he did. They all felt at ease in her company, as if somewhere in their body there had been a tense muscle they hadn't known about that would just loosen up when Darcy was there.

He walked up to her to carefully take the drink out of the hand that wasn't currently drawing voluptuous breasts. He could see that she was leaning against the window mostly because she was drunk enough to have trouble standing upright on her own. "I think you had enough Ms. Lewis. Don't remember you being such a lightweight. Last time we went out you had at least twice as many drinks before you drew yourself a goatee and started to make up some serious science.", the Captain said with a good humoured smile.

He'd expected some resistance. Darcy usually wouldn't let anyone mother her, especially not when it came to her buzz. But she just let go of the half empty glass without even looking at him. Her docility worried Steve. There'd been a few times where she'd sung a terrible rendition of that song about independent women while sealing her ears with her hands when someone had told her that it was probably time to stop drinking. Other times she'd just shakily danced out of reach if anyone tried to take her glass.

"Something is going on with you.", Steve said simply. It wasn't just the drink she'd given up too easily, it also was her way too tame dissection of tonight's events. Darcy was miles away from her usual cheeky self. Miles away from Steve, too, as it seemed. She gave no indication of having heard his comment.

The fireworks started to die down, there was mostly just heavy smoke in the air now, that would sometimes change from grey to blue or red, looking much like the mist hanging around in haunted houses. The quiet woman who looked like Darcy turned away from the window to face him. She lifted both her hands to her face and used her index fingers to stretch her lips into a smile.

"Look, Captain Roger's I'm completely fine!", she mumbled with deliberate sarcasm.

Darcy stumbled just a little bit when she reached for her glass. She held on to Steve's shoulder to steady herself. She wore what she called killer heels. On account of them killing her when she walked in them but also being deployable to kill someone else. Her eyes were level with his collarbone and she spoke to his throat. "I'll tell you about it when I'm ready Steve. I promise!" She tugged on the glass in his hand. Her voice sounded only a little bit more like her when she said: "Come on granny, the other's will be back from the roof, there are many desperate ladies and gentleman waiting for your attention. A good man would not keep them waiting!" Steve let go of the glass, the sudden loss of resistance made her sway, but she caught herself quickly and took off towards the elevators, singing something that could or could not have been Single Ladies.

He stood there, rendered motionless by the sudden surge off anxiety rushing trough him. Since he'd started to feel less out of place in this time and among these people, since he'd started to seriously try and make a home for himself here he seemed to have forgotten how to deal with change in any way but getting a sudden and very strong urge to just vomit until his guts came out.


	2. Chapter 2 - How did I end up here?

After they had been suspiciously M.I.A while Thor and Jane saved the universe with little help from Darcy and good old intern Ian, S.H.I.E.L.D. swooped in three days later. Cutting Dr. Fosters and the Thundergod's honeymoon, as well as Darcy's and Ian's awkward tries at turning near death horniness into a realtionshhip, short. This time they didn't only take equipment. They shipped everything and everyone back to America. Darcy knew that whom they really wanted was of course muscular and infinitely friendly space Dude Thor together with his genious science maiden Dr. Jane Foster. Soon after they got everyone settled into their impressive headquarters they even developed a little crush on Ian who'd turned out to actually be quit promising in the field of wacky gadgetry.

Everyone proved useful except Darcy, who had gotten her Bachelors in Poliscie since New Mexico, had kept working for Jane and had postponed getting a Masters and her very own career indefinitely. She was passed around for a few months, every new department chief, after looking at her file, gave her a few laborious tasks, didn't even try to integrate her into the actual work routine and gave up on her when her boredom turned into attitude.

They couldn't let her go though, allow her to fail on her own account, out in the real world.

They'd learned from what had happened to Eric after he was left alone after his run in with a malicious alien.

A bag of S.H.I.E.L.D.s newest pills didn't prevent his naked madman act at Stonehenge.

Afterwards a few people at the triskelion felt like they could have taken better care of a guy who played his own part in the saving of New York.

Now they felt, that Darcy needed to be taken care of, although everyone and their mother was at a total loss about what to do with her or about her.

At one point someone somehow got her into The Eisenhower School. Maybe it was supposed to be a joke at first. Darcy Lewis had close to no military training, aside from the short crash course S.H.I.E.L.D. gave to everyone they recruited on campus.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had a good enough reputation to get anyone into any uni and apparently they didn't care much about that reputation.

So Darcy went and Darcy made an effort to learn.

She reported back, to anyone who would listen. After a few months there were a few of them who would. Darcy had started to closely watch everyone around her and the observations she made spying on future government officials and intelligence leaders had much to offer to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Darcy Lewis had found a purpose.


	3. Chapter 3 - The Tides

With little ceremony and only the most tiniest sigh Darcy falls face first onto the huge bed. It's been a month of long days, a month of worries and it was the biggest relief to know that it hadn't been in vain. Missions have failed too often over the last few months. Especially the ones that had no other objective than keeping the peace. All those times Darcy and her team left for the triskelion filled with dread because they hadn't been able to quietly shut up a hateful trouble maker or to disperse a group of war and power hungry terrorists. It seemed like fate was working against them, it seemed like the whole world longed for chaos and violence.

This time though, they've achieved their objective. They've disposed of a small but loud man who had managed to amass a sizable following of frustrated young people who were ready to kill and maim just about anyone. They've managed to do so without anyone knowing about their interference and they've found someone they deemed better suited to try and give the masses a sense of purpose. S.H.I.E.L.D. took pride in their policy of not just leaving a situation they've destabilized themselves, their policy of not leaving devastated locals to fend for themselves. They do not interfere without a full plan, without offering an actual solution, S.H.I. . does not only complain, they also know how to do it better.

During the first debriefing the mission was deemed a complete success.

Still,I In light of the recent slew of failures the team was asked to stay put to be ready to make corrections should the situation prove to not be as stable as it looked.

They were booked into a nice hotel with all the comfort they could need in order to refill their batteries.

With her face squashed into the pillow Darcy can't hear her phone at first, misinterpreting the muffled ringing as coming from a different room.

Unable to keep her exhaustion out of her voice she picks up with a barely audible 'yo' without even checking caller ID first.

'You sound like you did that one time we didn't sleep for three days to finish your masters thesis.'

'Ian' his voice sounded just as tired as she felt, 'I haven't heard from you in ages.'

He tells her what she's hearing from many old friends these days. Tells her how busy he is all the time, how things aren't going so well despite everyone's best efforts, how the demands from superiors get increasingly ridiculous. He tells her about how suddenly everyone is so damn paranoid, about how hard it is to work when no one tells you what exactly you' re working on.

Hearing all of this, listening to all of these familiar complaints coming from him, who started out in this crazy organization together with her, who is one of the people she trusts the most, hearing him talk about how S.H.I.E.L.D. was changing sends a cold shiver through Darcy.

None of them had chosen to be part of this organization but over time both of them had found their place. Darcy would argue that Ian was exactly where he needed to be, but still he seemed as unsure of his position as Darcy did.

'And then there is this team no one really knows much about' he says 'Except that they're the only ones who still seem to come out on top more often then not. You should see some of he stuff they bring in, Darce, that shit is dangerous. And all we' re ever asked is to make it even more dangerous. Feels to me like everyone has learned a wrong lessons from what happened last time the played around with strange forces.'

The weariness in his voice, the hint of sadness makes her want to cry.

'I'm guessing things aren't going so well at your end either.'

Darcy just nods, expecting Ian to interpret her silence as affirmation.

These days her words fail her. She is so unsure of them. That had never been a problem. Uncertainty hadn't meant silence. She'd still say whatever came to her mind. These days though the words vanish when they reach her lips, forming in her head and in her mouth just to dissolve into thin air unsaid and unheard.

'Darce, I worry about you.'

More silence.

'To be honest, I worry about all of us.'


End file.
